The Secretary of State sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Thursday to explain exactly why America has to get involved

Secretary of State John Kerry sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Thursday to continue doing what his job description has called for recently: Explaining exactly why the United States needs to take military action in Syria.

“If we don’t do this, Assad will have a message that he can use these weapons with impunity,” Kerry told Hayes. “We will have turned our back on the next batch of children, on the next batch of parents.”

“We will have turned our back on the international norm,” he continued. “We will have lost credibility in the world, and I guarantee you if we turn our backs today, the picture we all saw in the paper today and the media of those people being shot, that will take place more because more extremists will be attracted to this because they will be funded as the only alternative in order to take on Assad.”

Kerry has been spending his days pitching Congress on the president’s proposal for a strike, one that would not require American soldiers on the ground in the Middle Eastern country. The proposed action comes as retaliation to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad allegedly ordering chemical weapons to be used on his own people.